Visit of Human Resource Development Minister

- from an article in The Hindu daily, January 2nd, 2003

'Auroville, an achievement and promise'

The Union Human Resource Development Minister, Murli
Manohar Joshi, said he was happy the Government of India had recognised
the Institute of Educational Research in Auroville as an institution
of higher learning of all-India importance.

Addressing a meeting of Auroville residents at Bharat
Nivas near here on Tuesday, Dr. Joshi said the government could extend
both moral and financial support to the educational research in the
project. The programme of educational research was centered on education
for human unity, integral development of personality and for value orientation.
All these three objectives were central to the education policy of the
Centre. He was happy that Sanskrit was being specially encouraged and
the Language Laboratory was designed in such a manner that it could
provide rapid training to students in Sanskrit as also in Tamil, French
and English.

The Minister also witnessed a short film on the
'Genius of India'. He said the film contained the quintessence of Indian
spirituality and vitality.

Visit to Matrimandir

Dr. Joshi, who had earlier visited Matrimandir,
referred to it as one that had intense and compact vibrations of the
living presence of the Divine. The mandir was majestic and intensively
beautiful in its conception, design and surroundings.

The VIPs communicating with Aurovilians under the Banyan Tree in
the Peace area and at the foot of the Matrimandir

He said that, to his mind, Auroville was an achievement
and yet a promise that was still to be fulfilled. It was a great effort
that aimed at fulfilling a tremendous dream - a divine dream.

It was a dream where human relationships were to
be built on the principle of universal fraternity and work was to be
done in a spirit of service to the divine consciousness. Life was to
be lived as process of constant research, embodying the highest values
both in individual and collective life.

Alternative models

He said there were several alternatives to solve
problems of the contemporary society. One model advocated unlimited
production and unrestricted consumption. That implied large-scale exploitation
and ruination of earth resources and ecological balance. Unfortunately,
in the wake of recent movement towards globalisation, this model has
come to the forefront. Instead of promoting universal brotherhood, it
has been providing universal expansion of markets. It was a movement
towards inequalities and subtle or explicit oppression.

There was another model that aimed at unlimited
production. But realizing that restraint in consumption was necessary,
it aimed at fashioning mechanical devises of restraint. This was also
not likely to solve the problem. No restraint could be effective if
it was sought to be achieved through external and social and legal devices.
That was now proved by the collapse of the communist framework in the
erstwhile USSR.

Multi-sided, multi-disciplinary and integral research

"We have therefore to look to another alternative
in which production and consumption were regulated by self-control."
He referred to the ideal law of social development formulated by Aurobindo
in his great work, 'The Human Cycle'. He said he was happy the directive
and guidelines given by the Mother on the organisation of the economic
life of Auroville had been implemented. The charter the Mother had given
for Auroville was also uplifting and inspiring one, fulfilling the highest
ideals that the country had conceived through the ages for social harmony
and solidarity. Auroville had been turned into a field of multi-sided,
multi-disciplinary and integral research, opening the gates of future
realization. It had been designed to fulfill the statement of Aurobindo
that "we do not belong to the dawns of the past but to the noons
of the future".

The Minister listening to Dr. Kireet Joshi, Chair
of the AV Foundation's Governing Board, during the visit to Savitri
Bhavan

Dr. Kireet Joshi addressing the Seminar on the History of
Indian Culture in Auroville's Centre for Indian Culture (CIC), Bharat
Nivas